Welcome to another episode of the podcast that teaches you how to be a ridiculously good virtual assistant.
Today we are talking about clients who constantly look for last minute, same day and rush work!
Today’s Quote: When you’re proactive about setting boundaries, you avoid things like burnout and unhappy clients. – Tonia Kendrick
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Connect with Tracey D’Aviero, VA Coach and Trainer
Episode Notes:
You know the type. That client that is always asking you to do something now, urgently, last minute, whatever.
What do you do?
How do you handle that?
If you are like most Virtual Assistants, you will probably go ahead and do it, even if you are grumbling under your breath the whole time.
It’s hard, because we are literally in the business of helping our clients. We are service professionals. We do what they need us to do.
It’s what we think we need to do.
Our clients need something, and it’s our ‘job’ to do it.
Well, I’m here to tell you that’s not the way it works at all.
Yes … they are paying you.
But they are not your employer.
You don’t work for them. You work with them.
They are your client. You are a business owner.
There are a lot of reasons to remind yourself of this fact, but this is one of the biggest.
Your work schedule is yours. You get to determine. You are managing the work tasks and expectations of all of your clients.
And yet, we say yes.
But here’s the most important part – we don’t say yes because we are being nice.
We say yes because we think we have to.
And that’s exactly what the issue is.
For some reason Virtual Assistants far and wide think that we have to do whatever our clients ask us to do.
Not all VAs, of course, but most of us have gone through this stage. Some of you stay in this stage.
It’s very natural of course when you are starting your business to have this kind of mindset.
Maybe natural is not the right word, but it feels like the right word.
It’s not wrong to have this attitude when you first start. We don’t know how to do business when we start out.
If you have never run a business before, it’s new.
We have to learn how to be. We have to learn how to act. We have to learn how to communicate.
I give new VAs this advice all the time: when you first start working with a client, don’t respond to them immediately. Don’t turn tasks around fast. Don’t do same day work!
Did I do that? Yes, yes, I did.
But I expect you not to do it? yes, yes I do.
Why? I’m not a hypocrite – I’m trying to save you from making a big mistake that is very hard to break away from.
It’s why a lot of us veterans, or teachers, or coaches teach you anything we teach you.
Because we want you to go down the right path – a different one that maybe we took.
When we give you advice about how to handle something in business, or what boundary to put in place, it’s usually because we know from experience that you will need that boundary eventually, and we are suggesting that you think about it sooner than we did!
Anyhow let’s get to it.
I want to break this topic down into a few sections so we can talk about how to handle each one, even though the ‘fix’ is sometimes similar.
Urgent Work
I’m going to start right way with the one that gets us all.
Your client says I need this work done now.
It’s their emergency. And sometimes it really does appear to be an emergency. Something has been forgotten, or there is a tech issue that needs to be handled.
When clients are freaking out about something, our first instinct is often to jump to attention.
We are helpers. It’s what we do. It’s what we are building our business around.
But it doesn’t mean that we can drop everything to help every time.
Sometimes? Sure we can.
And I do believe that if we have the time and availability, we can freely choose to help when an emergency arises.
However, there has to be a boundary in place about what you will do, and when.
Because clients get really used to having us at their beck and call quickly.
Trust me.
I had a client that I worked with for 7 years, and my business hours were 10 to 4 Eastern, Monday to Friday. She was single so she worked odd hours, long hours, and she often mentioned in the afternoon that I would be done soon. I could tell it bugged her that I didn’t work late, but I had to stop client work at 4 so I could finish my own day by 5.
Well, actually it is no one’s business why I need to stop my work at 4! but that’s basically why.
Anyway that’s not even what my story is about!
One day I had an appointment in the morning so I did some stuff early like at 7 am I was emailing her stuff for the day, or whatever.
Surprise, she was online (or maybe she went online when she saw an email notification from me), and she said something like ‘early morning’, and then I told her I had to be out for a bit so I was getting an early start, yes.
She then asked if I could send an email broadcast out for her before 9 am.
Odd request, we had worked together for so long and I never got a request like that from her. So I obliged. I didn’t want to do it, but I did.
I turned around one request in an hour – at 7:30 in the morning.
Because I was being nice.
Guess what happened?
Later that week, she sent another request after hours (I actually think it was early hours) for another email broadcast to go out before 9 am.
Remember when I told you that my office hours were 10 to 4? So she requested this task after 4 one day and wanted it done before 9 the next day. Ummmmmm.
I didn’t see it. I didn’t do it. And she was annoyed.
So we had a conversation. I asked her why she would think that I would be able to do that, or would even agree to it on such short notice.
She said, well you did it earlier this week. I know you’re online outside of business hours.
Yes! After 7 years of never having this type of request, it took ONCE for her to think she could do it again.
She wasn’t trying to be mean or needy or anything of the sort. She just needed something done and she figured I would do it.
Because I had before. And because I was nice.
Needless to say, we had an uncomfortable conversation about my availability and my lead times, which I’ll talk about later in this episode.
But honestly that’s how quickly it happens.
So well the veterans tell you that it happens. It always happens. And you have to prepare for it.
What to do about emergency work? Set up a policy in your business about what constitutes an emergency (not everything is), and discuss what you are prepared to respond to (ie tech issues) and what you are not (phone calls) or whatever.
Same Day Work
I hear you. Same day work – but Tracey, if I can’t do things for my clients during the day, they don’t need me. I have to do same day work.
Okay, we are going to have to define same day work.
Naturally I don’t mean that you can never do anything the same day a client requests it.
But here is what I mean – you set your schedule. You set it. Not your clients.
So if you have a client that you do work for and you have them slotted in to your calendar several times a day, you don’t have to know exactly what’s going to get done in that timeframe.
If a clients says here are the calls to make today, or here are the emails to send today, or here are the graphics for today – whatever – you can do them.
I get pushback from VAs often about that. You still decide what gets done and when.
But what I am saying is that you should not be sitting around waiting all day for your clients to send you something to do – and you definitely shouldn’t be looking at every task request as urgent.
We just talked about emergencies. Not everything is urgent.
If you have time to get something done, then do it. But be careful of turning work around quickly every single time.
Because there will be a time when you can’t do that anymore, when your client workload becomes much heavier, and your clients are going to notice the drop in service.
It’s not a drop in service, but when they compare it to what they have been able to get done previously, it will feel like it.
The first thing I suggest doing is when the client sends you a work request, ask them when they need it done by.
It’s a simple thing that helps you assert yourself and let them know that you are putting it into your schedule to get done at an appropriate time.
Not everything is urgent. I’m going to say it again. Not everything is urgent.
Get into the habit of asking your client when they need something done.
They will pause and give it thought – and they won’t if you don’t ask.
So just ask! Book things into your calendar more thoughtfully. This needs to be done today, this needs to be done by Wednesday, and this just needs to be done this week or some time this month.
You can do it! It’s a really simple way to take control of your schedule.
And then when you come to ‘today’, you decide what gets done. And if you need to move something, you can.
Rush Work
Now the other topics may have sounded like rush work too, and they are probably making you rush, but that’s not the type of work I’m referring to.
There can be all kinds of reasons that a client asks for a rush job.
Usually it’s because they are behind on a deadline or a project – and so what they are asking for is for you to turn your attention to something.
At least that’s how I make sense of a rush job request.
The client doesn’t really realize what they are asking for.
But a rush job to me means you are hurrying – you are rush hour.
Now that I think of it, rush hour is not really aptly named at all. It’s not a rush, it’s more like slow hour. Why do they call it that?
Rush in this case means hurry. At least it does to me.
So your client is asking you to hurry up and get something done. Again, whether they realize that’s what they are asking or not.
In my experience, that means that they are looking for you to complete a task in less time than it would normally take you.
That’s what makes it a rush.
So maybe you usually need 2 days of lead time for something, and the client doesn’t get you the pieces in time, so now your Thursday deadline is getting closer and you have less time to get the task done.
Maybe they only send you the email copy at 11 pm and the broadcast has to go out at 9 am (and you only start work at 10). ha ha. See what I did there?
That to me is rush work.
I tell the story often of my client whose newsletter we sent out at 11 am on Thursdays.
I billed them an hour for each newsletter that I did for them.
They would routinely send me the copy for the newsletter at 10 am on Thursdays.
Until one day I told them that wasn’t going to cut it anymore.
Yes, I billed them an hour, but it didn’t mean that I sat down for an hour and did their newsletter every Thursday at 10.
Maybe I did all my draft setups on Monday mornings. Maybe I did my images on Tuesday afternoons. Maybe I sent myself the test email on Wednesday at noon.
Yes, I was billing an hour, but I was in charge of how that hour was used.
See the difference?
Of course they weren’t doing anything wrong- I was letting them send it very late every week. And no, I wasn’t scheduling it out the way I described – but all that meant was that I HAD to be available at 10 am Thursday for an hour to do their newsletter.
And I truly didn’t. I needed to send it out ON Thursday at 11, but I was not managing my work, and they ended up getting a rush job every week.
Until we changed the way we did things. We changed up lead times. I remember working with a client who organized the pieces for her newsletter a week ahead. I thought I was dreaming!
But that’s the way it can be.
And for real, it’s the way it should be.
When you set proper lead times and deadlines, and you use your calendar and your schedule well – your days will be better managed.
You will be more proactive with your clients, and you will run a better VA business.
Let’s circle back to today’s quote from Tonia Kendrick
When you’re proactive about setting boundaries, you avoid things like burnout and unhappy clients.
You can see from the three examples I’ve described in this episode, that boundaries is the key to avoiding burnout and unhappy clients.
Managing the expectations of your clients is going to be an ongoing task – and the better you get at it, the happier everyone will be.
Burnout is a reaction to being overworked.
That happens when we don’t manage our days well.
Take control of what you do and when you do it, and you will be happier. You will be more productive.
And you will have happier clients too!
I’m going to leave it here for today. If time management and setting boundaries and policies is something that you need help with, be sure to get in touch with me.
What You Need to Do Next:
I am here to help. It’s the only reason I’m here at all, as you know. To help you become a ridiculously good VA.
I’ve helped hundreds of VAs through challenges just like yours, and got them on their way to growing their business and the lifestyle that they dream of. That you dream of.
I’d love to do the same for you.
Let’s work together privately to get you to your really big goal. It’s the fastest way to get results and we can start right away. Learn more about private coaching here.
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